Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Raghav Bikhchandani & Yash Budhwar
Content advisory: The following item contains an account of rape which may be difficult to read.
Yet another Kolkata rape case
Less than a year after the RG Kar protests, Kolkata is in uproar over another horrific rape case. And once again, the prime accused has ties to the ruling Trinamool government—leading to the usual netagiri around sexual violence in this country.
About the rape: On the evening of June 25, a 24-year-old student was gang-raped within the premises of the South Calcutta Law College. With the help of two accomplices, the prime accused—Monojit Mishra—dragged her into the security guard’s room—where she was raped:
They took me to the guard room forcefully, undressed me and started raping me," she alleged in her complaint…The woman further said that the accused recorded videos of the act and threatened to leak those if she didn't cooperate. She said she tried to fight back and attempted to escape, but sustained injuries when the accused tried to hit her with a hockey stick.
A medical examination corroborated the woman’s story—showing “evidence of forceful penetration, bite marks and nail scratches on her body”. All three men were arrested the following day.
The suspects: The prime accused—31-year-old Monojit Mishra—is a former student (more on him later). The other two—19-year-old Zaib Ahmed and 20-year-old Pramit Mukherjee—are current students of the law college. Also arrested: The 55-year-old security guard Pinaki Banerjee for aiding and abetting the three men.
According to the police, all three have a history of sexually assaulting female students, filming the act—and using the footage to blackmail their victims. They seem to have a hitlist:
The entire matter was premeditated. The trio had been plotting for several days to carry out this torture on the victim. We have found that the victim was targeted by the prime accused from the very first day she got admission to the college.
Meet the ringleader: Monojit Mishra has by far the longest rap sheet:
Eleven criminal cases are registered with Kolkata Police against Mishra. Among the alleged offences are molestation – including the tearing of a woman student’s clothes inside the college in July 2019 and an assault on a woman in Kasba in 2022 — apart from theft, battery and vandalism.
The most important bit: Mishra is a Trinamool man—a former leader of its student wing. He was given a job as ‘casual staff’ at the college thanks to the recommendation of Trinamool MLA Ashok Kumar Deb. This allowed Mishra to continue terrorising students—despite graduating in 2022. He openly boasted of his political connections—and claimed they gave him immunity.
RG Kar redux: Mishra’s party connections are especially damaging to TMC. Sanjay Roy—convicted in the RG Kar hospital case—also had deep ties to Trinamool. He was a member of Mamata Banerjee’s civic volunteer program which operated like a private army of thugs for the party The CBI’s investigation of the possible cover-up of the crime implicated RG Kar Principal Sandip Ghosh—who, surprise surprise, had TMC connections.
TMC keeps digging: With Trinamool in a political hellhole, senior leaders like MP Kalyan Banerjee and MLA Madan Mitra did their valiant bit to help:
While Mr. Banerjee had said, “If a friend rapes another friend, then how will the government authorities provide protection in such cases,” Mr. Mitra said that the survivor should not have ventured alone in the college.
To make things worse, Banerjee also took a shot at fellow TMC colleague Mahua Moitra for flagging his comments: “Misogyny in India cuts across party lines. What differentiates [TMC] is that we condemn these disgusting comments no matter who makes them.” Banerjee’s response:
An MP who was expelled from parliament for breach of ethics is preaching me! She is the most anti-woman. She only knows how to secure her future and how to make money.
Well done, indeed!
Plan B for Trinamool: Every party has its rapists! The Bengal police has now summoned a monk linked to the BJP—after a woman expediently filed an FIR alleging rape.
Why any of this matters: Assembly elections in West Bengal are slated for March/April 2026. Every BJP blow matters.
Reading list: India Today had the initial ground report on the gang-rape. The Telegraph has Monojit Mishra’s lengthy rap sheet. The Hindu looks at TMC’s PR implosion in light of Banerjee and Mitra’s remarks. For more on the politics of the RG Kar case, check out our Big Story from September 2024.
A grand genome project: DNA from scratch
Scientists have been able to read and alter DNA for decades. UK researchers now want to construct genetic code from scratch—“molecule by molecule.” This is way more ambitious than the powerful CRISPR tech—which allows scientists to edit genetic material. These folks want to actually make synthetic DNA:
Scientists on the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project will spend the next five years developing the tools and knowhow to build long sections of human genetic code in the lab. These will be inserted into living cells to understand how the code operates.
Why do we need this? One argument is that building the human genome will also help us understand it better: ”There’s an awful lot of the genome, sometimes called the dark matter of the genome, that we don’t know what it does.” This in turn will open the door to revolutionary treatments:
Armed with the insights, scientists hope to devise radical new therapies for the treatment of diseases. Among the possibilities are living cells that are resistant to immune attack or particular viruses, which could be transplanted into patients with autoimmune diseases or with liver damage from chronic viral infections.
OTOH, others worry that playing god (creating humans, basically) may propel us into “a dystopian, Gattaca-esque future full of designer babies.”
Point to note: The effort is expected to take decades. As of now, the team has only managed to create the genome of E. coli bacteria—which is roughly 700 times smaller than its human counterpart. The Guardian has lots more on its benefits. (Gizmodo)
Attention, future parents: AI is a sperm-hunting genius!
Doctors at Columbia University Fertility Center have used AI to find live sperm in a man who had nearly undetectable sperm levels. It marks the first time this specific AI-assisted technique has been used to help conceive a baby. Here’s how it worked:
A tiny camera captured millions of images in a semen sample. AI scoured them for viable sperm in hours — a process that might have otherwise taken days. The result was a speedy extraction of the sperm that could at last fertilize an egg.
Usually, finding sperm in such cases is like finding a needle in a haystack. Labs can spend days looking—and still come up empty-handed. But in this case, AI found 44 sperm within an hour. What a rock star!
Why this matters: For men with azoospermia—extremely low or no sperm in semen—this is a huge breakthrough. Right now, doctors often have to perform surgery to extract sperm directly from the testicles:
These surgeries can be painful, carry risks and are not always successful. Some lab techniques use stains, dyes or lasers to help identify cells, but these substances can be toxic to sperm and make them unusable for fertilization.
That said, the method needs to be tested more widely—before we bring out the champagne. (Washington Post)
what caught our eye
business & tech
- Apple is reportedly working on new Vision headsets and AI-powered smart glasses to rival Meta’s Ray-Bans in the coming years.
- Spotify is jazzing up Discover Weekly playlist with new genre buttons—so you can tell it whether you're in the mood for pop, R&B, funk, or more.
sports & entertainment
- Article 14 has a good read on why Honey Trehan’s ‘Punjab ’95’ has spent over two years stuck with the Censor Board—and how the BJP is using it to quietly block films on thorny political ground.
- Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Sardaar Ji 3’ is breaking records in Pakistan—beating ‘Sultan’ at the box office—after sparking backlash in India for casting Hania Aamir.
health & environment
- The IMD says July will bring above-normal monsoon rains—good news for farmers in the peak sowing season.
- India added 683 animal and 433 plant species in 2024—including hundreds never recorded before.
- A new study challenges the idea that inflammation is just a natural part of aging—pointing instead to our environment as the real culprit.
- Biologists have found a brand-new structure hiding inside human cells—one that may act as a microscopic recycling plant.
- A fungus once feared as the ‘mummy’s curse’ is now showing promise as a leukemia treatment—rivaling FDA-approved drugs.
meanwhile, in the world
- An Israeli airstrike flattened a popular Gaza beach café, killing over 30 people and wounding dozens more, according to local doctors.
- New satellite images show Iran carrying out repairs at its Fordow nuclear site, days after it was bombed.
- Canada has scrapped its tech tax at the last minute—clearing the way for stalled trade talks with the US to restart.
- Financial Times (splainer gift link) has the scorecard on Keir Starmer’s first year in power—and what Labour has (or hasn’t) pulled off so far.
- The Trump administration is suing Los Angeles—accusing its sanctuary city laws of blocking immigration crackdowns.
- It has also ordered lawyers to go after naturalized Americans who have committed certain crimes.
- US government has also said Harvard broke civil rights law in its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students—and could lose further federal funding as a result.
- Pakistan and China are cooking up plans for a new regional bloc—to replace the now dead SAARC.
- Weeks after India’s Operation Sindoor strike, JeM’s Bahawalpur seminary has reopened its swimming pool—signalling business as usual for the terror group.
- The Guardian has a good read on why reading any classic in public—from ‘Frankenstein’ to ‘Infinite Jest’—now risks being labelled “performative” online.
meanwhile, in India
- The White House says Trump and Modi are close—and a trade deal announcement is coming soon, with the July 9 deadline looming.
- A blast at a Telangana chemical factory killed 14 workers and injured 35—after an explosion ripped through during duty hours.
- Al Jazeera has a good read on why an Indian naval officer’s remarks about losing jets to Pakistan—and being held back by Delhi—have set off a political firestorm.
- Amidst the row over the officer’s remarks, India’s Jakarta embassy says its military answers to elected leaders—unlike its neighbours.
- Scroll has a good read on the EC’s move to scrap Bihar’s voter list—forcing nearly 3 crore people to prove their citizenship before the polls.
- Forty years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, 337 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory has finally been incinerated in Madhya Pradesh’s Pithampur.
Three things to see
One: Rightwing warriors have a new reason to hate on Zohran Mamdani—a video of him eating with his hands. See the supposedly offensive video below.
Republican neta Brandon Gill was suitably horrified: “Civilised people in America don’t eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World.” His Indian American wife stood by her man—saying she “always used a fork to eat rice and never grew up eating rice with her hands.” In fact, “My father’s extended family lives in India and they are also Christian and they use forks too.” Too bad the other side has receipts. (The Telegraph)
Two: This year’s Glastonbury music festival—which concluded on Sunday—became one long Palestine protest site. First rap duo Bob Vylan encouraged the audience to chant ‘Death, death to the IDF’ and ‘Free, free Palestine’ during their set. This quickly became a trend. Jade from Little Mix asked the audience to say ‘fuck you’ to “justifying genocide.” Bono’s son Elijah Hewson, lead singer of Inhaler, dedicated this song to the people of Palestine:
And you can see people enjoying and waving the Palestinian flag during the Irish band Kneecap’s set below (which BBC refused to air live). (The Independent)
Three: Meet the winners of the BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition—which showcases our planet’s precious diversity. The Grand Prize winner was ‘Leap of Faith’ by Donglin Zhou which shows lemurs leaping over a 100-foot ravine—one with a baby in tow:
Kat Zhou topped the Aquatic Life category with this image of octopus babies still developing in their eggs:
Last but not least, ‘Third Eye’ by Marcin Giba—which shows a frozen lake photographed from a drone, with footsteps of unknown creatures:
You can see all the winners over at BigPicture’s website here. (Smithsonian Magazine)
feel good place
One: When British actors play Amreekis. Lol.
Two: Ruler of the jungle vs ruler of the family.
Three: Kerala schools get their Zumba groove on (context here).
